Trauma Center – Under the Knife (Nintendo DS)

Game Diary / May 3, 2006 / John / 1

It’s a bizarre concept – making life-or-death surgery the subject of a video game. But it works! Trauma Center is a frantic nerve shredding panic game controlled entirely from the touch screen. Essentially, you play the role of a rookie doctor and have to perform varying surgeries against the clock. It sounds odd – but here’s a simple operation:

Imagine, if you will, that you have to remove a tumour from someone’s intestinal tract. Ok, so first of all, sterilise the area where you’ll make your incision by selecting the sterilising goo bottle and drawing a line with it. Then whip out your scalpel and make the incision. Camera zooms in to a view of the intestine. Whip out your ultrasound gadet and prod about looking for the shadow that will indicate where the tumour is. Ok – got it – quick now, before the ultrasound image fades, you need to make an incision through the wall of the intestine to reveal the tumour. Ok, you’re now leaking blood all over the place so you need to give a quick shot of antibiotics to stabilise the patient. Ok, that’s done – take your sooky thing and draw off the green goo from the tumour. That done, whip the scalpel back out and cut round the tumour. Next, get your forceps and pull the nast thing out and drop it on the tray. Then, pick up a piece of synthetic membranes with your forceps and drop it over the wound. Sterilise it with green goo and rub it down with your finger. Everything ok? Right, well pull out, stitch up the incision and steristrip it and you’re done.

Now then – imagine doing that with five tumours and an unknown infection causing the patients vitals to crash horribly quickly, requiring multiple shots of antibiotics after each action. And you only have five minutes. And limited supplies.

So far, I’m only at Story 2-1, but I’m a nervous wreck :-/

John